Trinamool Congress leaders are hunting for people who had recorded and then handed over to the media video clips showing party MP Tapas Pal threatening to unleash rapists on CPI(M) women workers.

"I have asked local Trinamool leaders to identify the persons. It is a difficult job as
many villagers cutting across political lines gather when a star like Tapas Pal arrives," said Tapas Saha, Trinamool Congress general secretary of Nadia area, where Pal had made the speech on June 14.

The footage, filmed with cellphone cameras, was aired by Bengali channels on Monday. In the first video, Pal is seen threatening CPI(M) workers with rape in Choumaha village if Left workers dared to harm his party workers. In the second video he is exhorting his supporters to bring him CPI(M) workers so that he can behead them himself.

In their effort to find the "culprits", some overzealous Trinamool workers vainly checked cellphones of a few people for the videos.

"My phone was also checked. But I had deleted whatever I had recorded immediately after the controversy started," said a villager who had listened to the speech of Pal, a two-time MP from Krishnanagar constituency.|

Saha told HT that leaking videos to the media could be the handiwork of CPI(M). He also didn't rule out that someone from the party could be behind the conspiracy, as it is believed that there is a strong anti-Pal faction in Krishnanagar.

But president of Krishnanagar Town Youth Trinamool Congress Dipak Biswas strongly believes that CPI(M) was behind the whole affair as the incident took place in Nakashipara and Tehatta, not Krishnanagar.

The episode has unleashed a storm in the country. While the party was cornered by every section of society, concerns grew after Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee said "what else can I do? Shall I kill him?" She was replying to a reporter who asked her whether Pal would be punished after he submitted an "unconditional apology", saying "he had no excuses to offer".

On Wednesday, Mamata told her party leaders to refrain from making statements when the media is around. She also blamed the media for buying the videos that have caused the party its biggest embarrassment yet.